Of Cousins, George Benson and Swims

Right now i have my 5 year old cousin, Abigail, sitting next to me, driving me absolutely nuts. As I'm typing i this she is playing with my Logitech Mouse moving the mouse cursor ALL OVER the screen. And at the same time I'm assuring my grandma that i'll try my best not to get blown up when go back to london after the summer. Anyways, my little cousin came over to my place this morning and invaded my personal space. Everything that i wanted to do has come to a standstill, put off and taken over by the No. 1 priority of entertaining the 5 year old. Now it's no easy task entertaining a hyperactive 5 year old. Playing lego means building a little house with her, and then playing an imaginary i-live -with-you-in-the-same-house-let's-go shopping-together-in-little-Lego-cars for about as long as 2 lifetimes, then proceeding to playing ball with her, and finally when i ran out of ideas, i opened Microsoft Word and left her "play typing" with the laptop. Now this day has really gave me serious thoughts of whether getting married and having kids is actually such a blessing. I mean, man, the kid demands 24-HOUR-UNWAVERING-PLAY-WITH-ME attention. This is crazy. okok... i needa get a grip on things and move on.

Anyways I've been out swimming the past week every morning. The nice cool water has some fantastic calming effect in the ridiculously hot and humid weather here. You just feel like chilling out in the big nice olympic size MPMBB pool forever and ever, until the siren blast goes off and tells u its time to get up out of the pool. Funny thing about there(MPMBB pool) the lockers have no wristbands where you can tie the key round your wrist while you swim. And i kept my key in err...the side of my swimming trunks. And expectedly it got lost. So you can imagine the searching that ensued. And of which i couldnt find it. Until i stood up and walk out of the pool and look down and notice something wasnt right about the shape. I leave the rest to you. But point is i got the key back and my stuff out of the locker *grins*

Bought 2 cds yesterday. Got myself that Lakewood CD that I always wanted. Its awesome. Just so good. Been listening to it ever since. And also a Geroge Benson: The Greatest Hits Ever CD. Not bad, i kinda like it, but i wish there were more songs which were heavier on guitars. There's some ballads in there which just dont really appeal to me. But having said that, he's one heck of a guitarist.

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And some wonderful things that happened the last week. I was quite concerned about my housing situation in London for next year as there was plenty of uncertainty of whether i would have a place to stay, housemates, etc and all that stuff. So as I was wondering what was the best approach to it i askerd God about it. And true enough, in His goodness, an answer came the very next day and the situation of the house is settled with very favourable terms. Praise God for that!

Another incident was my guitar case which was damaged on the way back from UK. Had tried to repair it but the lock's permanently screwed. Also the guitar had bits and pieces falling out. Lodge a complain to MAS a month ago but no reply. Decided to bring it to God again...and next day I get a phone call from my travel agent saying that MAS had replied and will reimburse me 160USD! How awesome is that?

Thank You Jesus!

Fragility and The Quest For Speed

I've been sporting this msn nick for sometime already now with the intention of reminding myself to blog about it....a phrase that has, one word that's rather thoughtful and maybe even profound i might say, and another one holding not much of a meaning because i erm... erm.... like contrasts and playing with words to make unmeaningful phrases.

Ok, let's begin with the word fragility. I just realised how fragile we are, our lives, our very beings, everything that we have and own. Take our lives for instance. A moment its like this, and another moment its like that. While some of us maybe argue we're fine and all, you know like typically, "Aiyah don't worry one-lah, sure can one. So small matter scared for what?" ( for any non-malaysian readers that's english btw, victorian style) kind of thoughts that invade our minds, thinking we're invincible ,albeit subconciously, in our ignorance of eveything happening around us.

Take your confidence for example. It's fragile. Like a flowerpot . Drop it but a little and it might stand. Drop it a little harder and it cracks. Apply the right blow and it completely shatters. And what happens of the soil inside it holds? It leaks out. Not immediately, but it does. Like us. Without our confidence things that used to be routine for us just get impossible. Like survival for that flower in the broken flowerpot.

Or another more infamous incident, the bombings in London. Imagine some typical working guy, probably waking up that morning, dreading the morning rush hour at King's Cross, or a young lady excitedly climbing up bus No 30 to begin her first day at work, an alcohol consuming cigarrette puffing sexoholic party guy who woke up thinking about that encounter with that lady in the bar night before and looking foward to meeting her again that same night(no intention of patronizing here, just making a variety of characters), or the God fearing man who woke up that morning and took the tube to get to a friend who was facing troubles and needed someone to talk to. Individuals who once were alive are no longer bacause some severely misguided (and probably manipulated) people thought that by killing people they'd be doing God a favour. So fragile. Everyone of us.

And reading Thomas A` Kempis' The Imitation of Christ which prompted all this thinking in the 1st place, says "Oh, how great is human frailty, which is always prone to evil! Today you confess your sins, and tomorrow you commit the very same sins you have confessed today. Now you purpose to take heed, and after an hour you behave such as though you had never had any such purpose at all."

And how true were Mr. Kempis' comments. Our very beings are frail. But a fitting conclusion to this bleakness was indeed the following sentence of his words, "Therefore we have good cause to humble ourselves and never to have any great conceit of ourselves, since we are so frail and inconstant. "

Maybe we need to live like there is no tomorrow, no, not like going out partying and all that, rather to actually do some good and help that old lady living across the street. Or encouraging a friend who feels down. Or serve instead of being served.

Just maybe.

cd wishlist edit

OK i just went to Alter Bridge's webbie and heard some samples from their album...man...i want that one too cos it rocks. Check them out at http://www.alterbridge.com/home.html

something to remember

Just a little reminder to myself ..... :)

Sweeter

Everyday with you Lord
Is sweeter than the day before
Everyday with You Lord
Is sweeter than the day before

Every morning I will worship
Every evening I'll adore
Cause everyday with You
Is sweeter than the day before

What a privilledge to know you
Like I know You
To be loved
Like You love me
What an honour to worship
Truly worship
From this heart that You have freed

From the rising of the sun
To the setting of the same

Everyday with You Lord
Is sweeter than the day before
Everyday with You Lord
Is sweeter than the day before

Every morning I will worship
Every evening I'll adore
Everyday with You is sweeter
Sweeter than the day before

What wonder to live like
Really live like
Overcoming anything
What a reason to lift up
Freely lift up
Everyday my everything

From the rising of the sun
To the setting of the same

Everyday with You Lord
Is sweeter than the day before
Everyday with You Lord
Is sweeter than the day before

Every morning I will worship
Every evening I'll adore
Everyday with You Lord
Is sweeter than the day before

Everyday, everyday with You Lord
Everyday sweeter than the day before

From the album "Cover the Earth" by Lakewood Church

Thank You Jesus!!!!!!

CDs anyone?

Was recently thinking of getting off my butt and buying those few CDs that i've always wanted. Problem is, there might be a wee bit too many of them. Which of course the real problem is the lack of necessary funds. I remember very vividly before leaving for UK sometime this time last year that newspapers were ranting about how music CDs prices would drop...well its' been a year and they have only increased. No wonder they can't stop people from buying pirated CDs which costs only 1/4 of the original price at most.

But anyways here's a wishlist:

1. Jamiroquai's A Funk Oddessey
2. AC/DC's Double Disc AC/DC LIVE
3. Bon Jovi's Crossroads:The best of Bon Jovi
4. Gun's N Roses Greatest Hits
5. Santana's live album Sacred Fire
6. Steven Curtis Chapman's All About Love (mushy I know but he's one heck of a musician)
7. Lakewood Church's Cover The Earth (been searching high and low for that one and can't find it)
8. Incubus' Morning View
9. Velvet Revolver's Contraband
10. Lost Prophet's Start Something
11. Anything from Chet Atkins or Tommy Emmanuel

Darn, that's quite a bit.

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Recently I was struck down with the wrecthed holiday killer they call flu. Been sniffing about for a week now. Can't even do half the things I planned to do. So for the past week I ended up gluing myself in front of the TV armed with the PS2 and this oober cool WW2 game called Medal of Honour Eropean Assault. The game is actually a bit poor in some ways (like how enemies seem to spawn out of nowhere and start causing serious bodily hard to you), but it's a fun 1st person shooter. Darn computer games. No matter how I swear off them I always end up playing them. On a side note, they shoule make more games like Crimsonland.

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Oh yeah, and Subang......Subang gave me the most enjoyable 5 days of my life since I got back. Its even better than Italy. Or Europe. Or anywhere else in the world for that matter. Moments of nostalgia mixed with reality... meeting up with close friends...blissful indeed. whoopeee!

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and, here's a cool site for you guys to check out in your free time:

http://www.think.com.my/

So people out there, have loads of fun in the coming week. seeya

subang...

SUBANG HERE I COME! Wheeeeee......

Sabah - Negeri Di Bawah Bayu

Not too long ago i went back to the land where i was born, Sabah. Went there specially to climb Mt. Kinabalu, with two of my old high school buddies. Its one of the best trips i've been on, definately worth many many more visit cos there's so much to see, and not even food poisoining on the last days which ended my holiday could dampen my enthusiasm for that place. Sabah rocks!

Anyways here some pics that i took over there.

The view of KK town (Kota Kinabalu) atop bukit bendera. I went there and realised that Melaka is indeed a more ulu place than Sabah....haha...kononnya Straits Settlement. Only problem with KK is that its a little bit pricey over there, food slighty more expensive than KL.

Mount Kinabalu- This was the view we had from the chalet that we stayed in the night before the climb. Pretty pretty indeed.

.....Ooooohhh! We're halfway there...Ooooo-oohhh! Living on a prayer!.... Halfway through (actually more like 1/4) the climb we stopped to take a picture. Left to right: Jonathan, Wilbur and me. I look kinda sheepish in this pic. Don't like it at all.

A we climbed higher, i chucked my camera back in my bag and gave up taking pictures and concentrated more on catching my breath. NOT a good idea to go climbing if you have a flu. Not at all. But anyways as we went higher the tall thick tropical foliage evetually disappeared and turned into small tiny bonzai-like trees. And more importantly we saw the mountain. Felt kinda small and insignificant when I took this picture. No more trees up there though (duh!).

Poor Jon boy died of exhaustion that night when we reached Laban Rata (Laban Rata is a place where u stop and rest for the night before continuing your climb to the summit). He fell asleep in 3 seconds...I swear, no kidding. But anyways we didn't, so we took some pics of *ahem* and not to mention a couple of videos featuring the sleeping John boy. He hasnt seen it to this day...muahaha

The first sight of daylight near the peak. Me and wilbur saw the start of daylight about 500 m from the peak. And dawn came, it dawned on us that WE COULDNT REACH THE SUMMIT IN TIME FOR SUNRISE! So onward from here was a psychotic run upwards to the peak (Imagine Frodo and Sam on the last part of their journey to Mt. Doom and you'll get the idea.. minus the burning lava and of course, the preciousssss..). Still had time to pause for a picture though..wheee!

We did make it to the peak on time for sunrise. So i went trigger happy here and forgot about all the exhaustion and all the flu and cold and wind and blah blah blah. But here's a view looking south-eastwards from the peak.

Made it for sunrise! yay! Only bad thing about this was that the howling wind meant that i couldn't get a good clear picture. But i guess it looks pretty fine anyways.

Poor Wilbur's hands were shivering when he took this picture for me. But anyways thats the peak and a signboard in Kadazan or Dusun or Bajau or Iban..heck I dunno. There were bucketloads of people up there too. All like us, cheered up by the peak and the arrival of daylight.

John made it to the peak slighly later than we did, and again we stopped for a photo when he arrived. Don't mind the raincoat that he's wearing. It was raining for 8 hours the night before we set off.

These 3 fellas sticking out are known as the three ugly sisters. Wonder why they didnt name it the three ugly brothers instead.

We made our way down after that and stayed one more night at the foothills. This was the morning view from our chalet. Very scenic place.

When we got back to KK town, we stayed over at a friends place (More like my dad's good friend). He was very kind to take time off and show us around and tell us stuff about Sabah. Anyways this is Yayasan Sabah, a foundation set up giving scholarships out for students who do well in their SPM exams. Shortly after taking this picture all the complications involved in getting food poisoining set in and..yeah you know what happens when you get food poisoining. If you haven't, you dont wanna know.

After that we went on to UMS, (it's University something Sabah, i dunnoe lah!). Anyways its the hugest Uni in Malaysia i think, and certainly one of the most beautiful ones. The place has a freaking beach lah! And what do i get for my uni in london? A patch of grass that they call a park! But anyways these 4 pics were taken from the Uni's jetty(!) looking out towards the sea. I should make postcards out of them and put them up for sale.

Arriving home after that my food poisoining got really bad and i was pretty much not very mobile after that. So all plans of island hopping at the Gaya islands and Tanjung Aru beach was shelved as i then concentrated on staying alive. But we still had time for one last picture...

A tribute to the wonderful family (minus wilbur and john boy of course) who was exceedingly hospitable to us, and kept me alive and all in my last 2 days there. They're the greatest people.